The relevance of women in Buddhism
May 19, 2008 by Raymond Lam
I hope this will not be an overly controversial post for you, dear readers, to digest. You are free to contradict me, I only ask for the initial goodwill that leads to genuine dialogue and debate.
I think there are too many women (and men) both within and without the Buddhist movement who criticize the tradition for being ’sexist’ towards women. While it is true that historically, Buddhism has been rather patriarchal, this is primarily because it has been the male sex that has formulated, systematized, and recorded Buddhist doctrine for 2500 years.
What the critics won’t tell you is that WOMEN live, practice, and set examples of all that heavy-handed doctrine, in general, BETTER than MEN.
Take Chenrezig up at the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. There are almost twenty nuns there. There’s only one resident monk there, and he’s a Novice! That’s right, he’s my good buddy, one of my close friends. The rest of the monks who come to Chenrezig are either senior monks who are guests. There were once more male monks, but now many of them have left the Order altogether. Tenzin Palmo, the renowned British nun, brought to light this recurring problem of an imbalance of Tibetan nuns and monks. The gist is that men are horny. There’s no real detour around that observation. More men leave the monastic Order simply because they feel, in one or another, they can live life (whether as a Buddhist or non-Buddhist) more fully as a layman. Now I’m not saying laypeople are religiously useless, far from it. Because now I’m moving to my next point of argument.
In several places around the world there are church communities dying out because the demographic is composed mainly of wrinkly old geezers who fart too much. But even worse - the young mothers with the KIDS have left the congregation, and without the influence of wifey, hubby/boyfriend feels no obligation, let alone desire, to attend church. Without mum living her religious values, it is very unlikely the children will really gravitate toward any religion at all, let alone their mother’s church, unless they are of a spiritual/religious nature or discover something transcendent much later in life, when they probably have moved away from home.
This leads to the theory that if you wish for a religious community or movement to thrive, draw young women, whether or not they are mothers, into it. Depending on which side of the fence you sit, you might feel this is either outrageously sexist or flatteringly empowering. But it seems that women, at least based on research in America, commit deeper to religion than most men, and engage in the activities of community more often. Personally, I don’t think most religions should be as communal as they currently are, but leaving that aside, where men fall behind in praxis, women more than make up for it.
The Mahayana bodhisattvas have always watched over women in gratitude for their ‘developed means of charity, kind words, good deeds, and revelation of enlightening action.’ (Diamond Matrix, Sutra of the Ten Stages pg. 739) Although in our modern culture there are indeed many men and women who have fallen by the economic and social wayside. This is really beside the point: that the councils of bodhisattvas and Buddhas never exclude women in the expounding of cosmic doctrines in the Avatamsaka Sutra; that several of Sudhana’s spiritual advisors are city goddesses and night goddesses; or that Sakyamuni Buddha had far more influence from his female relations than male (he literally didn’t give a shit about what his dad wanted!). And who was the very first being who testified to the Buddha’s virtue; who was it that the Buddha called upon to defend his right to remain under the Tree? The Earth goddess.
I could go on and on for several paragraphs. You get the idea. Even when men dominated the scenes of authority in Buddhism there was something that seemed amiss. And that was the active caretaking of women disciples and nuns, who could be strong guardians of the Dharma. In the modern world, it is a good thing to see more women joining the Sangha, because the Buddhas and bodhisattvas’ teachings is now another step closer to realization.
At least, this is the way I have always explained it to those who have wished to learn. You are free to contradict me if you wish.
There are really insightful thoughts in this post. It is true that nowadays we see many of the rituals in the Buddhist communities of various Schools that smell of patriarchal biases, especailly in the Mahayanist one. But as the post says, such a situation has more to do with the fact that it “has been the male sex that has formulated, systematized, and recorded Buddhist doctrine”. And I would act: in most cases it’s the male that have been dominating the everyday running of the Buddhist sangha.
As far as the Buddhist doctrine itself is concerned, there is not much one can say about its being sexist and patriarchal. Many people might argue for their case by quoting the story about the Buddha’s refusal, for several times, of Anada’s request for his admitting women into his sangha, and about the Buddha’s comment, in response to such a request, that the existence of the Dharma in this world was to shorten by 500 years. But that’s an invalid argument. Justifications for the Buddha’s words and deeds in this case have been put forward, but I don’t intend to elaborate on them here. Suffice it to say that one would find it really hard to locate words of the Buddha that are patriarchal.
And yes, I totally agree to the idea implied in the post: the future of Buddhism, as much as other religions, lies heavily in whether it is able to attract young women to become its followers.